Veteran Labour MP, Michael Meacher, has heavily criticised the use of benefit sanctions dished out by under pressure Jobcentre staff on Britain’s unemployed.{jcomments on}
In his blog Mr Meacher writes:
“It’s called ‘sanctioning’, and it’s part of the Tory armoury designed to brutalise the poor. DWP figures, just released after being withheld for months, show that in the last year, after the Tories introduced a new tougher benefit regime last October, benefit payments have been suspended in the case of the unemployed no less than 580,000 times on the grounds that, according to the government, they either failed to look for work or turned down a job offer or missed a jobcentre appointment.
“This of course fits the stereotype vigorously propagated by the government and the Tory tabloids that unemployed people are shirkers or benefit scroungers, but it is a gross misrepresentation of reality on several grounds. First, getting a job is mathematically impossible for all the unemployed when there are 2,500,000 people workless and only 400,000 vacancies.
"The vast majority of unemployed people are extremely keen to get work, but the jobs simply aren’t there. It’s Osborne’s economic policy which is (deliberately) keeping the jobless figures high, so why should those who can’t get work be punished, and extremely harshly?”
Read more: https://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2013/11/its-not-just-austerity-its-deliberately-punitive/
Thanks to Jim Allison for spotting this for us, courtesy of Welfare News Service.
